Four Facts Every Author Should Know

When you are a published author, you should learn all about the trade you are in, right? Well, no. Unlike like other businesses I’ve noticed some authors have missed the basics. So this might help.

Recently I saw a post on Instagram where someone talked about seeing a book she fancied, but had to jump through hoops to find a link she couple buy from. If it’s not clear, or leads to another country’s Amazon store, readers will give up and not buy. Nobody wants to lose sales.

Fact number one is:

Readers from the UK and some other countries cannot buy books on Amazon.com. (US)

As social media covers all countries, anyone can see your book and could be tempted to buy. Countries who have their own Amazon store cannot buy from a different one. In other words if the link is to your store, then it eliminates everyone else. The way round that is to use universal links. Click for more details.

An Amazon book link only goes as far as the ASIN book number. Everything else is just html

Besides, it doesn’t look great when you post it. This is the complete link for my book. – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Lines-Karen-J-Mossman-ebook/dp/B0CBNNP41Y/ (UK store only). It will get you there. Anything longer than that looks like spam.

Its’s the same link for all Amazon stores, with one amendment.

Look again at the link above. If you changed the co.uk to .com or to .ca, it will take you to the US store or the Canadian store. Just use the prefix for your country.

Authors should have an Amazon Profile if their books are on there.

When a reader buys your book, they will often go to your Amazon profile by clicking on your name under the book title. Here they will see all your books in one place along with your bio. So, make sure yours is up to date. You can do this by going to Amazon Author Central and setting your profile. If your country doesn’t have an Amazon store, then US will serve you. For your country, put author.amazon. in your search bar followed by your countries abbreviation. For instance, I would put author.amazon.uk. It may just help your sales.